This working paper is the second Demography working paper released in 2004.

The ABS adjusts short-term overseas arrivals and departures (OAD) statistics to account for seasonal and irregular influences. This working paper explains the key differences between original, seasonally adjusted and trend estimates and how they are derived by the ABS. It also discusses the benefits and disadvantages of some of the commonly used measures of OAD behaviour and provides guidelines for interpreting OAD time series.